100 Polish factories struck over the use of riot police

By
WITH ANALYSIS FROM MONITOR CORRESPONDENT AROUND THE WORLD,
EDITED BY HILARY DEVRIES /
January 14, 1981

Warsaw

Workers staged a one-hour strike in more than 100 factories to protest the use of hundreds of riot police to break up the occupation of government offices in a town near the Soviet border. Other workers who are seeking an independent union for Poland's 5 million private farmers continued a separate sit-in and threatened a new wave of strikes because government officials failed to meet their deadline for negotiations.

The strike threat appeared to signal a split in the newly formed independent union, since the national Solidarity organization said no strikes had been called and they could be ordered only at national Solidarity level. The crisis did not prevent Solidarity leader Lech Walesa from going to Rome, where he met with Italian union leaders.

Meanwhile, Poland's Communist leaders are studying the draft of an economic-reform plan they hope will help pull the country out of its present quagmire. The draft, released as Poland faces a third year of negative growth, calls for more autonomy for enterprises, more realistic prices, more worker say in decisionmaking, and less central bureaucracy.